Work Text:
Kuroo [03:04]
Beverage
Me [03:05]
Smoothies. For the fourth time, we're right beside each other, you know. McDonald's?
Even though the biggest predicament of his young life is an indirect, elongated consequence of alcohol, Kei does not actually get drunk very often. Perhaps he would indulge more if he was of the class of cockroaches that include Bokuto. (That is, when he says cockroaches he means to allude to the whole thing where they can live for ten days even after getting their heads cut off, not their ugliness. Bokuto may be annoying but he is definitely more handsome than a cockroach.)
Anyway, perhaps he would indulge more if he was like Bokuto, who does not understand the technicalities of a hangover; perhaps not even then. Kei only chooses to get drunk when he feels like it, and proceeds with that very aim in mind, and that doesn't happen very often.
Which explains the fact that he cannot explain why he had all that much to drink the other night at Sugawara's place. Yes, he had mostly finished with his work and wanted to relax, but Kei has never equated relaxation with Enough Cider To Flood The Entire Campus unless in very dire situations, so it was a little surprising anyway. He supposes what came next shouldn't be all that surprising, but he honestly doesn't know what to feel about it, especially since it brought about...this.
Kuroo [03:06]
KFC
The thing is, it's all very funny to talk about how it tires him to contemplate what must be going on in Kageyama or Hinata's head at any given moment, or to think about Yamaguchi being surrounded by all those squealing puppies and his coworkers at the shelter and the number of kids who must undoubtedly come in to squeal at aforementioned squealing puppies, but the truth is that sometimes company does more than just drain him. Sometimes it makes it a little bit harder to breathe, or rather, it seems to remind him that he's lucky that breathing is involuntary. It makes him feel like he has to concentrate and remember to breathe, and it's the only way he knows how to put it.
Sugawara and the others had been nothing but good with him, and even his little exchange with Oikawa had felt, in a way, like he was stepping onto a new rung on the ladder, finding out that there are people with whom he can have discussions like this, all in good fun. It was refreshing, really, in a way different from the company of his own friends. Maybe it was also refreshing because it was a reminder that he still had new friends to make.
And he liked it, he did— contrary to popular belief and whatever Bokuto has to say (which is unfortunately the same thing given how much Bokuto is worshipped on this infernal campus) Kei does not always actively look for things to be distressed about— but maybe it was the leftover buzz from his exams, or the cider, or just them— the overwhelming, constantly-moving, demanding fact of them that got to him.
'Tsukki? You all right in there?'
He would be lying if he said it was the first time ever, but it was definitely the first time that someone followed him out. Kei also knows that it doesn't go to say nobody cared before— just that nobody dared, before.
'Don't call me that.' That was definitely the cider.
'Okay, but are you all right? Can I come in?'
He would honestly have loved to go out to the balcony instead, but it would still have left him in full view of everyone else and that was precisely the problem. He'd never think about saying something like this, but he feels like he understands Yachi to some extent. He thinks he does a pretty good job of keeping attention away from himself most of the time, and doesn't always mind when it's focused on him; but sometimes, and he doesn't know what leads up to it, one moment too long makes it, well, a little bit harder to breathe.
The bathroom was the second choice, and while the idea of Kuroo seeing him sitting on the closed toilet lid wasn’t the best, it was, at least, better than Kuroo seeing him hyperventilate over the sink. And worrying that Kuroo would mock either was a thought too ridiculous to entertain.
'It's...it's not locked.' He hadn’t thought of it, even though it had been a good ten minutes.
Kuroo had entered just as quietly as he had spoken, closing the door behind him with a soft click and stepping to perch on the edge of the bathtub. In the bright lights above the mirror, he looked pale, a little unreal, but that could also have been the look on his face— this quiet thing that Kei had only seen twice before; on Kuroo's birthday, and before that, when he caught him singing.
'You all right?' he asked a third time. 'You're a little tipsy.'
'I'm aware,' Kei said. 'I just wanted to get away from the annoyance theatre for a while.'
Kuroo snorted, shaking his head. 'The annoyance theatre. You always keep those coming.'
'What can I say? Look how they inspire me.'
'They're trying their best, you know. Suga asked me about fifty times if I was sure you liked pizza.'
'I know,' Kei said at that, after a pause. 'I'm sorry.'
'Don't be. I mean, I said yes to him and I don't even know if you like pizza.'
'I like pizza.'
'Yeah? Pasta?'
'Depends. You?'
'Pasta over pizza any day.'
'That can't be possible,' Kei said, laughing a little. 'Uh, I'm pretty sure I misheard you.'
'I mean, I love them both but pasta's always going to be just a step above. How about sauces for pas—'
'No, no, rewind,' Kei said. 'You can't like pasta more than pizza. You're at university. It's just not possible.'
'Of course it's possible. Just because one of the two is marketed more appealingly—'
'Are you being a food hipster right now? Really? How do you manage to sound so snobbish when you're talking about pasta?'
'What can I say?' Kuroo grinned. 'Look how you inspire me.'
Kei blinked at him for a moment, then shook his head, then regretted shaking his head. 'Pasta's all right.'
'Pasta's great. Tea?'
'Coffee. You should know by now. You?'
'Coffee. I mean, tea's all right too. You don't like tea at all?'
'Tea's fine,' Kei said, the memory of his grandmother’s favourite tea a bitter swallow. 'Coffee's better. Oikawa's not wrong, you know. I do like to pull my all-nighters.'
'You should come over sometime,' Kuroo said. 'To the café, I mean. If you ever want company.'
'You're there all night?'
'I mean, the café closes at midnight.' Then Kuroo leaned forward and winked exaggeratedly. 'I keep going all night long.'
'Oh, disgusting. You better let me actually study.'
'Oh, absolutely, Tsukki. Your academics above everything.'
'And under the wheels of your car, apparently.' Kei raised an eyebrow, or both, or something, at Kuroo.
'My car,' he said haughtily, straightening up, 'is not of this world, sugar. It doesn't count.'
Kei might not remember much from that night— not because of alcohol, but because of exhaustion— and not much even from those few minutes in that bright bathroom with the clean mirror and Kuroo perched on the bathtub like a friend— but he remembers his toes curling in his shoes when he heard sugar, remembers the way his instinct shut down for a moment and then sprang back up.
'On that note, I think it's about time we went back,' he'd said, coolly, with as much of a smirk as he could summon. 'I don't want anyone thinking I fraternise with thieves.'
'I hear the cider now,' Kuroo laughed— laughed— then, quieting down a little, took a sudden, deep breath. Kei leaned his head on his knees and stared at him. Even at forty five degrees, he still looked like the only reason Kei had agreed to come along to dinner. Dark, dark jeans and the sleeves of his shirt rolled up, leaning forward and looking at Kei with a focus he didn’t know what to do with.
‘Got a bunch of things to prove to people, huh,’ he said. ‘What’s on the list?’
Everything, Kei remembers thinking, clearly, perhaps his most distinct memory of the night apart from the alarming burn of his lips on Kuroo's cheek. To everyone.
Me [03:09]
I do like the fish at KFC.
Kuroo [03:11]
I mean you go to a chicken restaurant you eat some chicken Tsukki
The texting started the very next day. Something like six in the evening, a lone 'Green tea?', at which he frowned for a full ten minutes, on and off, before replying with 'Yamaguchi makes me, sometimes. Iced tea?'. He can also pinpoint the exact time later that day, that the entire affair of actually going over to Le Petit Trashcan began, but sometimes he is not as harsh as he could be when it comes to some of the Big Mistakes he makes. Sometimes he Lets Things Go, and this is one of the occasions, and for that extremely sound reasoning, he sees no need to make specific note of the fact that the first time he actually packed a bag full of books and supplies and stepped into Le Petit Fuck This Shit was ten minutes past midnight on the thirteenth of December.
There are already very few things on his list of things that he can Let Go. Let Things Go consists of:
- The occasional cranky professor who refuses to listen to reason or grade assignments the way they should be graded, and not with a frighteningly precise goal to ruin all of Kei's career before it even starts;
- Those times when the convenience store runs out of his favourite flavour of instant noodles;
- Almost every choice he has made related to his interactions with Kuroo Tetsurou.
He says almost, because the fact that currently they are texting at three in the morning on his sixth night in a row at Le Petit Ballpoint is one that cannot, in any circumstances, be Let Go of.
He knows that it's not only him; it's that he can genuinely study in peace at the café. Despite his propensity to annoy the hair off Kei's head, Kuroo actually ends up getting reasonably engrossed in his own work, whether it's cleaning up, or additional baking, or studying himself. In fact, the only time that Kei is actually distracted from his notes is when he is using up brain cells to figure out how to look like he's not sneaking glances at Kuroo out of the corner of his eye.
Still, even if he chooses to deviate from the wrongness of the principle— spending so much time in the sincere company of the man who is more or less the bane of his existence on weekdays and the Bane of his Existence on weekends— there is the entire little incident of him actually having kissed said man on the cheek a week ago. All of those things just don't go well together. Something is off somewhere, something doesn't add up; and he can't Let It Go. That's the trouble.
The trouble is that— the trouble is this, him sitting cross-legged on the carpet with his things splayed out on the low coffee table, Kuroo on the couch with a thick book that Kei wants to take a look at, both of them utterly silent, the only light coming from the lamp beside his notes. The trouble is also their cellphones in their hands even as they sit across each other. The trouble is everything, and there are so few things on his list of things he can Let Go that there is absolutely no way everything can fit on there.
Me [03:16]
Pencils or pens?
Kuroo [03:16]
Pens. The thinnest points possible
Me [03:17]
I’d like to see your notes, if you don’t mind.
Me [03:19]
...it's actually heartwarming that you think a thin pen is going to help with that handwriting.
Kuroo [03:19]
Rude! I'll have you know I have a mean shorthand
Me [03:20]
That's not shorthand. That's a seismogram.
Kuroo [03:22]
I refuse to reply to this
●●●
The most tragic thing that Kei has actually had to learn at university is that holidays never start when they are officially said to, and they never start or end cleanly. Of course, he could run a series of seminars on how not to start and end holidays when it comes to personal actions, but the problem is that the administration of his particular faculty would not care much about that memo if they ever received it. When they say the holidays are beginning in the second week of December, what they really mean is that classes will cease to be held so that students have more time to run around with submissions like they all have a ferocious dog chasing them that only they can see. Hellhounds, that sort of thing.
What this means for him is that despite having turned most of his assignments in on time, he's actually called into a lot of office hours to discuss said assignments, or he's contacted by panicky classmates who have unfortunately not previously exhibited the sense and willingness to turn their assignments in on time. Which means that the first two or three days of his hard-earned Christmas break are just him walking around on campus with a look on his face that could rival Kageyama's most dangerous scowl. There is also, of course, the question of what he is going to do once his real holidays start. Yamaguchi may be dropping hints left, right and center about tickets and getting good seats, but as long as he doesn't get loud enough to mention that Christmas is a family affair, Kei can comfortably ignore him. What he cannot comfortably ignore is the glaring blank space in his own schedule where there is neither studying nor partying, and none of his friends.
'Earth to Tsukki,' he hears, and blinks away the early-morning sleepiness to turn to the speaker. 'Coffee not doing what it's supposed to?'
Kei is actually, for once, too exhausted to glare at Bokuto. Which is definitely saying something, because even when he is down on his knees and the world is crumbling down around him, Kei can always, from some hidden corner of his soul, muster up the energy to be an ass. Especially to Bokuto, who, by dint of being Bokuto, demands and deserves at least sixty percent of Kei's disdain. How Akaashi manages to get any work done around him is beyond Kei.
'I can't believe you're not fascinated by my story about the urban legend,' he's saying right now, as Kei blearily focuses on him.
'I can't believe you're telling me about urban legends at seven in the morning,' Kei says. 'Aren't you sleepy? What kind of person are you?'
‘The kind of person who wakes up and immediately listens to the Crazy Frog theme in the shower,’ Kuroo calls from the kitchen.
'I'm not even a person!' Bokuto says cheerfully. 'I'm an energy drink.'
Kei contemplates this for a moment, concedes, and sighs heavily. 'Be that as it may, my coffee is going to take a few more minutes to kick in.'
It's not just about Bokuto telling him about urban legends, and not even about Bokuto telling him about urban legends at seven in the morning. It's the slight (read: extreme) disorientation that the telling of the urban legends brings when it's done in a sweet-smelling café that Kei is still trying to come to terms with frequenting so much lately. Le Petit Park may do a stellar job of accommodating almost everything that Kei fears in life, but it's still no place to hear about how 2:00 AM to 3:00 AM is supposed to be the witching hour.
'I mean, we were, like, thirteen,' Bokuto resumes, as if Kei has not just informed him that his comprehension is in the minus. 'It's like, Kuroo and I had this entire horror phase for, like, six years. And it's not like we weren't scared. We were shit scared, dude.'
'Right,' Kei says, lifting his cup to his lips again. He stares at the only other cup on the counter, still steaming, clear against the colour of the wall just behind. Kuroo's humming in the kitchen, and Kei doesn't know when he'll get used to that either. He's not one for dramatics, but something about the scene— the three of them here at seven in the morning and him still having the space to think about how he swears today is his last productive day on campus— feels like pieces coming together for short moments in time, then loosening and settling apart again.
He really needs more coffee.
'So for like six months after we read about the witching hour thing, if Kuroo ever had to get something from the kitchen past two, he'd drag Kenma along. Which, like, what was he gonna do, sacrifice Kenma to whatever demonic shit showed up?'
Kei spares a thought for the wild alley creature Kenma owns and wonders how long he's had the thing. Maybe keeping that along would be more helpful, since Kei is pretty sure that it's scarier than all of the world's urban legends combined. But then, if Bokuto and Kuroo are the brand of human beings that actually get scared after watching Final Destination, there isn't much he can say about their logic.
'You're gone again,' Bokuto says. 'You know, you should try Kuroo's coffee sometime. It's nowhere near as sissy as yours—'
Kei slowly, very slowly, puts his cup of very strong coffee down and turns on the barstool, fully facing Bokuto in order to smile politely at him. 'Did you just call my coffee sissy?'
'I mean—'
'No,' Kei says. 'First you are already present at this establishment when I wish to have a quiet coffee before moving onto my academic duties. Then you find it necessary to tell me about Kenma's demon-repelling abilities. And then you cannot even search around for an adequate insult for my coffee, which, by the way, is definitely stronger than anything you can consume that isn't an alcoholic beverage fit to set fire to a building?'
'Now that's the spirit!' Bokuto beams at him, not the slightest bit affected. 'You're awake now! You don't need Kuroo's non-sissy coffee anymore.'
Kei now definitely has the energy to glare at Bokuto, and so he employs the energy. Once he's satisfied, he levels a glare of similar intensity at the innocent, abandoned second mug on the counter. It doesn't look any darker than his own coffee, and Kei firmly believes that an espresso and Americano are basically the same thing. Just because he prefers to dilute his espresso a little with water doesn't mean it's sissy. It's still the same thing. And he can have any damn espresso in the world.
'Son,' Bokuto begins gently.
Kei doesn't allow him to continue; he's already reaching out for Kuroo's cup and bringing it to his lips. He briefly registers thinking that it's hot before he takes a swig that might have been a little ambitious. He says might because before he can evaluate the ambitiousness of it, he is hit with the most incredibly stunning taste that his tongue has ever had the misfortune to experience.
If anything, it fills him with an almost poetic admiration for Kuroo. Surely the world is a brighter place because Kuroo chooses to diminish the amount of darkness in it by consuming some of it personally. Surely that is the reason the sun shines. Because Kuroo Tetsurou consumes night in a distilled form at seven in the morning every day.
It takes all his willpower and ego— which seems to fall almost short— not to spit the vile drink out, and he remembers, with frantic amusement, the Jägerbombs that got him into this predicament in the first place, as he swallows the coffee down. He manages to put the cup down gracefully, but Bokuto's face is practically glowing with glee anyway.
'Told you,' he says. 'Kuroo's coffee is so strong, he can probably smell it when he—'
'When I what now, you uncouth little fuckmuffin?'
Kuroo almost seems to have materialised out of nowhere, brushing his hands over his bright pink apron as he leans in the doorway of the kitchen and glares at Bokuto. In retrospect, Kuroo has more or less materialised out of nowhere into Kei's entire life anyway.
'Why,' Kei begins, then takes a breath when he hears how shaky his voice is, 'would you willingly consume something like that?'
Kuroo raises an eyebrow, swift, unamused. 'To wake up.'
'Hey,' Bokuto says. 'Tetsu, did you drink from it before?'
'No, why?'
'Damn. Because, you know, indirect—'
Kei almost falls on his face in his haste to get off his stool. Holding onto the counter for balance, he still manages to give Bokuto the dirtiest look of the morning so far.
'You should've been the kitchen sacrifice,' he says coldly. 'Not Kenma.'
●●●
Kuroo [14:14]
Hometown
Me [14:18]
Pass. Favourite colour?
Kuroo [14:20]
Sorry. Blue
●●●
'Tsukki,' Yamaguchi says.
The biggest inconvenience with Kei turning thirteen, horrified, and smart enough to convince Akiteru to go to university was not even having to do things for himself. It was more that he was embarrassingly weak enough to go two days without sleeping after Akiteru left. It's been so long that he no longer remembers whether he did it willfully or because he couldn't sleep, but it doesn't matter so much in the long run when he has such an awkward relationship with his memory at any given time. What he does remember is that on the third day, Yamaguchi had caught him sitting at the window and staring outside aimlessly.
The disadvantage of having Yamaguchi as a neighbour and best friend was that the boy never stopped at anything (not that he does now, when a few blocks separate them instead of one fence). Kei only remembers seeing Yamaguchi at his own bedroom window, and then, five minutes later, an insistent ringing at his front door.
'Tsukki, are you listening to me?'
When Kei had opened the door, Yamaguchi had run past him and skipped up the stairs, and jumped onto Kei's bed, bouncing a little when he hit it. Latched onto Kei, stretching and adjusting and fitting both their heads on Kei's pillow as if he'd been intending to do it since that morning. Kei was still much taller than him back then, enough that Yamaguchi's knees didn't fit with his and that he had to climb much higher on the bed for his chin to fit in the crook of Kei's neck. But his small hands were still warm over Kei's stomach, clasped firmly, childishly.
Kei has an awkward relationship with his memory at any given time. He remembers, conceptually, Yamaguchi talking his ear off until he drifted into sleep, but doesn't remember what about— in fact, he doesn't remember any of the other times after that, that Yamaguchi did the same thing. He remembers the warmth and how, over the years, Yamaguchi stopped needing to climb higher on the bed to press his chest to Kei's back, but he doesn't remember anything from what Yamaguchi talked about. He doesn't exactly mind; he never really managed to be cold enough not to understand the purpose of it.
Yamaguchi decided to grow his hair out halfway through their third year of high school, and it took such a shockingly short period for it to reach his shoulders that he had to start trimming it in six months' time. The ponytail he wears it in now is something that Kei regularly marvels at, and he doesn't miss on opportunities to tug at it. The hairclips, of course, are fuel to Kei's laughter too. He thinks it's a perfectly beautiful symbiotic arrangement; his entertainment as counterpoint to Yamaguchi's hair no longer bothering him while he studies.
'Tsukki,' he says, and Kei reluctantly tunes into attention. 'You're eighteen. Act like it.'
'What aspect of my maturity leaves you wanting, Tadashi?'
Today, apparently, he's having none of it, because he only parts his lips a little and stares at Kei incredulously, almost bitterly. It doesn't suit him all that much.
'He's alone,' Yamaguchi says. 'He lives in that house alone. Tsukki, he's your brother.'
●●●
Kuroo [14:14]
Favourite food
Me [14:18]
Dessert. High school?
Kuroo [14:20]
Pass
●●●
If he has so much work to be done only in his first year, Kei doesn't find it all that surprising that the staff of the café, most of them third-years, have hardly gotten the time to put up any Christmas decorations beyond the cursory ones in the doorway and a couple of speculoos specials on the cliché chalkboard menu. Kei, who couldn't give two shits about any holiday of the year and would prefer to eat some good cake to welcome the new year if he could, doesn't really care that the café looks the same even though Christmas is only five days away.
Yaku Morisuke, however, does.
Kei has met him a handful of times and prides himself on only having laughed at his height the first time out of those handfuls, and dedicating the rest to laughing at his hair. Kei might sport a blond himself, but at least he has never had the lack of good judgement that would lead to the hair choices that Yaku, Hinata and Bokuto have made. (Which, he can't believe it's been eight months of knowing Bokuto and he still hasn't asked what the fuck is up with his hair. Now that he thinks about it, actually, he's surrounded by people who have problematic hair— right from Yamaguchi to Hinata to Kuroo himself, with that piece of modern art sticking out in eighteen and a half directions sitting atop his head. Asahi gets an honourable mention too, honestly.)
The point is that Kei has met Yaku Morisuke before, and has heard stories about his ways in the kitchen as well, but as of yet, had never witnessed his wrath first-hand. He says had because it is a had, because Yaku is currently waving a flour-covered hand and informing Bokuto and Sawamura of exactly what he thinks of their time management and spirit towards the holy festival of Christmas.
'I HAVE NEVER WORKED WITH SUCH A BUNCH OF USELESS INDUSTRIAL SIZE SANDALS IN MY ENTIRE LIFE,' Yaku is saying, as Kei stealthily makes his way away from the counter and to the safety of one of the booths. 'IT'S LIKE NONE OF YOU CARE.'
'I mean, I don't work here,' Sawamura says. 'I really don't care.'
'THIS CAFÉ IS OUR HOME,' Yaku says. 'IT IS OUR DUTY TO MAKE IT LOOK LIKE IT'S CHRISTMAS HERE TOO. THIS ISN'T SOME SPACE REMOVED FROM TIME WHERE CHRISTMAS NEVER ARRIVES.'
Kei feels a little like being at a friend's place for a sleepover and watching their parents yell at them. In fact, that is exactly how Kei feels.
Bokuto, who is fiddling with his camera, looks up from it for a moment. 'Why does this happen every year?' he asks. 'You're going to attempt to get a Christmas tree in here, Tetsu is going to veto it, you're going to veto the veto and in the end all we'll have is a bunch of garlands—'
'IT HAPPENS EVERY YEAR BECAUSE YOU—' Kei turns to the entrance along with everyone as the doors swing open and Kuroo steps in, with what looks like three hundred lengths of Christmas lights wrapped around himself. Yaku huffs, but his murderous glare softens into a frown, as does his voice. 'Look, if it's the only place staying open on Christmas then it should look like it.'
'Is he trying to turn my café into a snow globe again?' Kuroo asks Kei, who blinks and straightens up, opens his mouth to reply, but Kuroo's already stepping further inside.
Actually, for a change, Kei isn't here entirely out of his own volition. Which is a relief in a way, because this would have been the seventh day in a row otherwise, and he's glad to break the streak of And Now I Willingly Step Into The Jaws Of The Beast. This afternoon, actually, it's some of the other first-years who decided to meet up at the café to regroup during the small window they have between finishing their final submissions and then heading out en masse to do last-minute Christmas shopping. It's like someone finally noticed that it's the twentieth, and that no one has any business with textbooks and assignments anymore, not even the most dedicated of them (which Kei proudly considers himself a part of). He isn't as enthusiastic as his classmates about the Christmas shopping aspect of things, but he won't lie about looking forward to all the temporary seasonal desserts that will be around all the markets that he hasn't had the time to walk around yet. It is a new city, after all, a new one and a big one and most importantly, a different one.
The problem is that Kindaichi, who organised the whole thing, hasn't shown up yet. Which isn't actually a problem because of two things; one, that Kei is the one who chose to show up half an hour earlier than planned; and two, he did this precisely because Kuroo said something, last night, about finally setting up decorations.
Actually, now that he thinks about it, the problem is not Kindaichi being late at all. That is the least of Kei's problems on this fine December afternoon. The most of them is—
'Hey,' Yaku snaps at him, and Kei jolts to attention almost immediately (there is really something about Yaku that isn't simply the terrible hair). 'Tall boy. Come over and help.'
Kei isn't normally one to take instructions, especially not when they come from someone who could not reach Kei's chin if he stood up on the tips of his toes, but as very recently mentioned, there is something about Yaku (that isn't simply the terrible hair) that compels any and all human beings around him to do his bidding. It is because of this compelling that he steps over to the counter.
'I'm not very good at the...' he makes a vague gesture towards where Sawamura is helping Kuroo untangle the lights.
'You're good at being tall,' Yaku replies. 'Be tall. Help put the lights up once those two burnt loaves fix them.'
'Okay,' Kei says, just as he senses Bokuto aiming the camera towards him. At this point, managing to throw up his middle finger just in time for the shutter to click has become this kind of coordinated dance, a work of art, really. Bokuto is tireless, though, as are Kei's condyloid joints. With all that clicking, Bokuto better have one hell of a photo album to show to Kei at the end of the year. He won't accept anything under stellar quality.
By the time Kindaichi and Furihata actually come in (and they're ten minutes late anyway, which Kei will definitely draw, coldly, to their attention once he steps off this stool) Sawamura has managed to straighten out all the lights without strangling Kuroo, and Kei has been assigned, as the person in the room most likely to reach the ceiling without falling and breaking three bones, to stand on the proverbial wooden stool and help put the lights up.
A part of him still doesn’t understand how he got dragged into this. In the first place he hadn't intended to come into the café to help with the damn decorations, and even if he was employed in that purpose, it's not like he expected to be plastered to Kuroo's side all the time or anything. Kei doesn't care for things like that, and honestly, at this point his instinct for self-preservation should kick in; he's not supposed to be wanting to hang up fairy lights with a guy that he kissed on the cheek last week. This is not where his life is supposed to be going, and the only thing burning during Christmas should be firewood, not his fucking rosebush.
'Tsukki?' he hears, and turns carefully to wave to Furihata, who's blinking up at him from the doorway, still in his beanie and scarf. Now there's a short man that he doesn't mind. (Yes, Kei very much means to imply that he minds most short men, and in turn means to imply that he minds most of the campus since most of the campus is shorter than him.) 'What are you doing up there?'
'I was,' Kei says, pausing to step off the stool and bowing to Sawamura, 'helping with the lights. Now I am not.'
It's a relief, in a way, because their entry seems to have broken some kind of spell. The same feeling of strange things coming together, touching here and there just long enough for Kei to be surprised at how right it feels, and then falling away again, and again. It could just be the holidays, after all. The same kind of buzz in the wake of responsibility that he felt when he first stepped into Sugawara's apartment at Bokuto’s side, the feeling of something waiting for him but starting slowly anyway. Impatience. All he was doing was taking the unrolled lengths of lights Sawamura was passing him and fixing them with tape where the wall meets the ceiling, but he caught himself smiling thrice.
Kei has an awkward relationship with contentment, in which he has never had the time for it previously.
'Go tell Yakkun you're clocking out,' Bokuto tells him. 'He'll have your ass otherwise.'
Kei rolls his eyes at him but nods at Furihata and quickly makes his way over to the kitchen anyway. He knocks, not wanting to enter without preamble and risk facing what he did the last time he entered this kitchen without preamble, but there's silence anyway.
It's only Kuroo, actually; Yaku must be elsewhere. Kuroo is working a whisk through the dark contents of a big bowl, pausing occasionally to brush his hair away from his eyes. Kei has the fleeting thought of Kuroo with the hairclips with the flowers on them, and discards it as quickly as it came. He doesn't have time for that.
'Oh, hey,' Kuroo says when he finally notices Kei. 'Heading out?'
'Still here,' Kei says, and it's ridiculous, because they've been alone for hours at a time on multiple occasions in the past week— he remembers it keenly— but knowing that the others are outside this time is somehow adding to his breathlessness (which shouldn't be there in the first place). He isn't nervous, hasn't been for a long time now, which just makes it all the more annoying because it means something almost sweeter. 'My classmates are just arriving.'
'Right, right,' Kuroo says. 'Well, have a good time.'
'Yes,' Kei says. He should be leaving now; that he knows very well. What's keeping him rooted to the spot, he doesn't know very well. 'Okay, then.'
Kuroo looks at him properly, then, and Kei looks back. It feels like ever since the night they danced, a part of Kei quieted down a little— it doesn't make much of a difference, but he can hear Kuroo better now. See his little smiles just as well as his loud grins, see the movement of his hands, things like that. Right now, Kuroo's smirking at Kei with his eyes, as if he knows exactly what is on Kei's mind and is delighted, obnoxiously, by all of it. (And Kei can do nothing but seethe quietly; hearing Kuroo better only means that he gets to notice just how many times the guy is laughing at him, and shamelessly, at that.)
'Here, try this,' he says, holding up the whisk. The dark brown cream on it seems appetising enough; probably one of the new Christmas specials that Kei has yet to try. 'New icing.'
Kei steps over and reaches out, gathers some of the icing on the tip of his finger.
The only thing that can overpower the strength of his regret upon tasting the icing is the bitterness of said icing. Kei is completely sure that he has just lended a helping hand to the whole Make The World Brighter cause by taking some darkness for the team himself. He is also completely sure that it will be the last time he lends a helping hand, or does anything at all in this life, actually, since he is currently in the process of crossing the great divide. Going the way of all flesh, as it were. Dying, he means to say.
Even if he was capable of speech right now, he doesn't think there is much point in looking up at Kuroo and saying this is bitter, or, more eloquently, this terrible thing that you have just made me put in my mouth is bitter. Mostly because Kuroo is already laughing the loudest Kei has heard him laugh, absolutely ungraceful, high-pitched, and smacking of someone who is roughly ten years younger than Kuroo's current age.
'Your face,' Kuroo gasps. 'Your fucking face.'
'If your juvenile fantasy has been satisfied,' Kei says coldly, 'I will take my leave.'
He resolves not to try a single thing off the Christmas specials menu.
●●●
Kuroo [23:48]
Worst subject in school
Me [23:51]
Art.
●●●
Hinata Shouyou has acquired a scooter.
Kei has enough self-reflection skills to understand that he usually likes to word his sentences with the most pretentious combination of vocabulary and syntax that he can employ, but some things are just beyond such petty practices. Hinata Shouyou has acquired a scooter, and to put it in any other way is to insult the magnitude of the moment.
Kei knows, theoretically, that if he chose to break into a run in this very moment, he could probably get to a safe distance before Hinata managed to kick some speed into that contraption with those little legs of his. But he is not unfamiliar with the concept of being frozen with terror, which is precisely what he is doing right now. Being frozen in terror, that is. There is just something about the sight of it— Hinata with his flaming hair flying in the winter wind, wearing those ridiculous fucking baby chick earmuffs that Kageyama got for him last Christmas, and the equally ridiculous FREE HUGS shirt that Kei already pointed out as being a few dozen sizes too big for Hinata's miniature frame— all of that, and then the scooter. The shiny silver surface of it, and one of Hinata's feet pushing against the ground as the wheels of the thing make a terrible, raspy sound against the gravel of the ground. Now this is the kind of urban legend Bokuto should be warning Kei about at seven in the morning.
'TSUKISHIMA!' Hinata screeches. 'LOOK, I OILED UP THE SCOOTER!'
'STAY AWAY FROM ME,' Kei says. 'NO— HINATA— HINATA, YOU STAY AWAY FROM ME—'
Kei knows that one funny post that still makes some rounds of the internet. The one about how, if you see this one video of a train approaching at a very fast rate and close your eyes at the right moment, your brain will think that there has actually been an impact. He also knows that the post is funny because it is a hoax, but right now he is praying to every force of the universe that its psychology actually holds some merit, because he is thoroughly convinced that the scooter is about to collide with him and has squeezed his eyes shut tightly.
Instead of the sweet embrace of the void, he hears the scooter come to a stop, and then a series of sounds that indicate Hinata leaning it against a wall. When he gingerly open his eyes, Hinata is standing right in front of him, his jacket unzipped over the FREE HUGS shirt, earmuffs miraculously in place, and a bright smile wide on his face.
'What,' Kei says.
'Hug,' Hinata says.
'No,' Kei says.
The unfortunate thing is that for someone who is as tall and intimidating as Kei is, he has yet to meet a whole lot of people who actually get intimidated by him. Or rather, it feels like those around him acknowledge that he is intimidating and then proceed to ignore this fact entirely. Hinata is definitely one of those people, because even after all these years, when Kei should very much have established that he is scary and an entire building taller than Hinata, the guy is still standing his ground, undeterred, still smiling.
Then Hinata spreads his arms. The shirt rides up a little from his knees to his thighs.
'Hug,' Hinata says.
Kei stares at him for about half a minute before sighing and adjusting his bag over his shoulder, stepping forward.
For someone who is roughly the size of a fridge magnet, Hinata actually packs a lot of power into his actions. Kei stumbles backwards with the force of his hug and has to do a ridiculous one-legged dance to maintain their collective balance while Hinata wraps his legs around Kei's waist.
Kei at least has enough of his ego intact that he refuses to put his own arms around Hinata. Well, maybe one arm, just so that they don't fall over; Kei's got his laptop in his bag. Purely for the sake of the laptop, he rests an arm around Hinata's waist and waits for the boy to finally, finally be done.
'Coming back with us for Christmas?'
He lets his arm drop.
●●●
Me [23:55]
Kenma?
Kuroo [23:57]
Supervisor. Yamaguchi?
Me [23:59]
Summer, friendship. Skittles. Things like that.
●●●
Now that the Christmas decorations are up, Kuroo is triumphant and obstinate about keeping them going even after closing hours. Kei understands the reasoning for keeping street decorations on through the night, but honestly, a private establishment has no obligation to society to keep the lights going. He’d tell Kuroo as much if he wasn’t a little too interested, for his own good, in how Kuroo looks in those lights.
That's the trouble.
The trouble is Kuroo lying, asleep, across the couch that they’ve more or less designated as their own; now that the Christmas decorations are up, Kuroo apparently has the time to be tired. The trouble is also Kei with his notes in a mess over the table, and Kuroo’s knee occasionally nudging the nape of his neck. Actually, now that he thinks about it— not that he should be thinking about it— the trouble lies in the fact that technically, he could move to a better position. He could. But honestly, he’s too lazy, and it’s too cold, and no one needs to care if no one minds. And then there are those lights— too far to make real shapes over Kuroo’s still form, but close enough that their little golden pinpricks make Kuroo’s colours come to life for heartbeat-long moments.
The trouble is also that— Kuroo in the lights of Vertigo, and his car, and the café.
Anyway. He is here to keep in touch with his studies, not to get in touch with trouble.
What actually gets to Kei is how Kuroo just stretched out across the couch and closed his eyes without a word. Even though Kei has yet to find it strange that they’re actually spending all this time together despite, well, everything, it still feels so different...alien, almost, to be sitting here as half a guest, half a friend, and seeing Kuroo just drift into sleep like they’ve been doing this for years and not mere days. He doesn’t know whether to feel embarrassed, or awkward, or just grateful. Actually, he doesn’t know what to feel at all, as he alternates between scribbling on his notes and turning to see if Kuroo’s still asleep.
It is cold. Perhaps not as cold as it gets back where he came from, but Kei always thinks that there is a particular point the winter chill hits after which everything feels the same and is just a question of what temperature his overcoat can protect him from. And inside, with the heat, it hardly makes a difference at all. It’s warm enough that his mug of hot chocolate is still steaming, and that Kuroo is only in a shirt, sleeves rolled up to his elbows. There is something very satisfying about it being so cold outside that it’s visual, and about the fact that he can see it safely from indoors. The café has large glass windows that do a sufficiently ethereal job of hanging the Christmas lights onto the sky outside, which is the kind of eerie dark blue that never completely seems to turn to black. The bare trees, the bright road under the streetlights, the fog in the distance— it all seems to amplify the mug, the carpet, Kuroo’s figure.
Kei leans his head backwards, close enough that his crown brushes one of Kuroo’s knees briefly, and then breathes in and straightens up again, drawing his laptop towards him.
He doesn’t even know how long it’s been when he hears Kuroo wake. There’s an unnatural hiccup in Kuroo’s breathing, and Kei can tell just from the sound of it, what it must feel like. Like skipping a step on your way downstairs and that added second of movement that wasn’t factored in; a kind of lurch in his heart, a moment of panic. He knows Kuroo has to be awake, because no one sleeps through that.
‘Are you all right?’ he asks, without turning from his notes. If someone would ever have the guts to turn their face to Kei while asking him that, he knows he’d gut them. It’s the least he can do to extend the same courtesy to Kuroo.
They might not be best friends, but Kei can understand, by now, that Kuroo always is all right. Not that Kei has ever seen it, but he doubts Kuroo ever needs a buffer period, time for recovery from anything. Not quite like Kei, who has to take an entire morning to get back into gear after he wakes up with Yamaguchi’s face on the projection screen of his subconscious, or Kageyama’s; lit up in headlights, traffic lights, glaring shiny sunlight. Yamaguchi; or Kageyama; other friends.
Mostly Akiteru, though, pale hair and pale skin blinding bright under the sun.
‘Kuroo?’ It’s the third or fourth time, and Kei still hasn’t turned around, more for his own benefit at this point than Kuroo’s. He can hear it, still; Kuroo breathing long and deliberately deep, over and over again. The hot chocolate isn’t steaming anymore but he hopes it’ll still be warm to the touch.
When he finally turns to face Kuroo, he sees exactly what he expected, but it still feels like a swoop of gravity over his chest. Kuroo’s lips are parted as he stares at the ceiling; he looks like he can’t put together the pieces of the room to make it look like a room. And Kei has been there.
So he reaches out without really thinking and takes one of Kuroo’s wrists, forming a circle around it with his index and his thumb, tapping the heel of Kuroo’s hand with his fingers.
‘Tetsurou,’ he says, keeping his voice so neutral that he barely registers the flutter the name gives him. Te-tsu-rou. ‘It’s December 21, 2015, a little past 3:00 AM. Hi.’
Kuroo’s hand is warm to the touch, and then he relaxes, smiles sleepily at Kei. He raises himself up on an elbow and looks over at Kei’s laptop. ‘Graphs?’
‘I wish. Models.’
‘Models are better than graphs, you know.’
‘Ah, yes, because there is nothing more superior in my eyes than your shitty taste, Kuroo.’
‘There’s no taste in academics!’
‘Yes, there is, and yours is shitty,’ Kei says. ‘Go back to sleep.’
‘I invite you to my abode, I offer you dark chocolate—‘
‘You steal my headphones; you murder my tastebuds as well as my intellect—’
‘Silk shirt.’
‘Bohemian Rhapsody.‘
‘Raspberry muffins.’
‘Concede.’
‘Oh, come, now, Tsukki,’ Kuroo sings. ‘I thought you had more fight than that.’
‘I like to save my energy for causes that are not entirely irredeemable, thanks,’ Kei snaps. ‘People like you and Bokuto are beyond help. I don’t know how Kenma manages around you two.’
‘Kenma is a human equivalent of a wilted macaron,’ Kuroo says. ‘He doesn’t think two feet beyond cats and anthropology.’
‘I always knew you’re a terrible human being but that is honestly a level of savagery I didn’t believe you capable of.’
‘What can I say? Look how you inspire me.’
Kei heaves a very, very deep sigh at that, pinching the bridge of his nose and closing his eyes. It really is something past 3:00 AM and definitely not the time to be dealing with Kuroo Tetsurou. Actually, no time is ever the time to be dealing with Kuroo Tetsurou, and Kei wishes to inform him of this.
‘I,’ he says calmly, ‘am going back to work.’
‘I didn’t know you’re a lefty,’ Kuroo says. Kei frowns at him in utter confusion for a moment, before following his fantastically gleeful gaze to where his right hand is still, in fact, holding onto Kuroo’s wrist.
Kuroo grins and raises his eyebrows, and Kei has no place to hide his face as he lets go as if their skin is burning. He has no words at all, actually, so he purses his lips together and angrily shoves his glasses higher up his face, turning back to his laptop with a vengeance.
The trouble is that about five minutes afterwards, all of it hits him in the face at once. At the very least, he is only willing to award half a point to the universe because of the delay in his despair. He might not be winning yet, but he’s definitely no longer on the losing side.
And anyway, as long as the hot chocolate is still warm, he won’t admit defeat.
●●●
Me [04:41]
Why's your hair like that?
Kuroo [04:41]
PASS. IT WAS GOING SO WELL.
●●●
It’s still dark when he goes back. The first, 6:00 AM shift is Yachi’s, which he’s grateful for— of all the people to see him already at the café in his hoodie with his books, she is probably the safest. (Still, he makes a mental note of the little smile she gives him; he should probably lay off all the hairclip and white labrador puppy references for a couple of weeks, lest she choose to bring up in front of their other friends the fact that she absolutely caught the sleep-creases on his cheek from the fabric of the couch.)
It’s still dark when he goes back, but he knows that it’s not too early. Definitely not too early. A little late, almost, actually. In fact, if he keeps staring at his phone like this, it’ll be sunrise by the time he actually dials.
‘Hello?’
Kei stares down at his hand, flexes the fingers, studies the nails. He’s trying not to count the seconds but doing it anyway, and there is silence for fourteen.
‘Kei?’
‘Hey,’ he says. Swallows once, twice, thrice. Kei has an awkward relationship with his memory, be it something that happened five years ago or whose face he saw in a dream last week. ‘I...wanted to know. What you’re doing. Over Christmas, I mean.’
Five, six, seven, eight.
‘Nothing special,’ Akiteru replies, finally. Quietly, surely.